Uncover the Sun
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1168a. (yesterday; see inside) At twelve years old, Nora gathers her parents all together in one room to reveal something to them. - Sunshine Girls series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 55th cycle. Now cycle 56!_

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___**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: Technicolor Wishes & Hi-Def Dreams, chapter 8__._

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**"Uncover the Sun"  
Nora 12 (AU!Beth), Puck/Rachel, Finn/Quinn  
Sunshine Girls series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_  
**

**_a/n: Sorry for the delay, technical difficulties... Happy New Year!_**

It was only a few weeks until she would be thirteen years old, and that seemed to have triggered something in the adults in her life. Her parents, her grandparents, aunts, uncles… all of them would go on about how she was getting so big, growing up, in any number of variations. In reverse, what it had caused in her was the conclusion that, if she was growing up, then there was something she should address with them, as a grown up. She did sort of feel like she was ready anyway, so it could all work out that the two events sort of coincided.

So that was decided. She was going to come out, to them.

Actually telling herself that she would do it, that was only half the battle, but already it did feel better than she thought it might, so maybe the rest would be okay, too.

She was sure she had sat in her room for hours, just trying to decide how she would do it, when she should do it. She had to talk them face to face, that was for sure. And it would have to be all four of them at the same time, just one conversation, that'd be easier for all of them… They would all be here for Sunday dinner, she could do it then… But then there would be all her parents, her grandparents, some of her aunts and uncles might drop by… It would be too many people. So not Sunday dinner. Maybe it would be better off if she just asked them all to sit down with her, just not too early…

Then she had it. Harper, her guitar, was at her father's house, she'd forgotten it the weekend before, and she'd been meaning to get it. She could call him and ask to bring it over the next day after school. At the same time, her stepmother was picking her up, so she would bring over to her mother's house, where she and her stepfather would be… Once her father arrived with the guitar, there they'd all be, and she could tell them she had to talk… It was perfect, like it was just waiting for her to use the moment to her benefit.

She had it all, the how, the when… She'd put it in motion once she'd called her father… And as soon as she'd hung up there had been this momentary twinge of doubt… What if she couldn't do it, or… There was no way they would react badly, was there? It wasn't like she was the only one in their lives, but… She was their daughter, so what if it was different? How could she have been so sure a moment ago, only to have it all turned around a second later? She could still change her mind… Yes, her father would bring the guitar, and he could go, and she didn't have to do anyth… No, no, she had made up her mind, everything would be find, everything had to be fine… She could do this.

The next day at school, her stomach was in knots the whole time. It got so bad that her teacher had sent her to the nurse's office because she looked like she was going to be sick. She was lying on a cot when she turned her head and spotted her father and stepmother coming in.

"Nora, you okay?" Rachel had come up to her, crouching and resting her hand to her forehead.

"I'm fine, Mom, just a little… woozy," she admitted. "Did they call just the two of you, or…"

"Your mom and your stepdad are waiting at the house," her father had told her, and she blinked.

"Wow, okay, that's… Okay, let's go then," she sat up, and her stepmother reached over to make sure she wouldn't lose her balance.

"Easy, it's alright. How about I sit with you in the back while we drive?"

"Sounds good," Nora had smiled to her.

Before she knew it, they were back at her mother's house, and although this wasn't exactly the plan she had laid out, she would have what she had wanted, her four parents in one place and attentive to her, so… the stage was set.

When they'd come through the door, her stepfather had been the first to reach them. "What happened, did you get sick?" he asked, coming to her, looking at her face.

"I didn't, but I might… I don't know," she shrugged. She didn't even want to think of the word, or it might cause her mind to imagine and then…

"Nora, what happened?" her mother had come up, holding her close for a few seconds. The twelve-year-old had looked up, looked around, to her four parents.

"I'm not sick, I think it's just nerves," she revealed.

"Nerves?" her mother asked.

"Can we go in the living room? Kind of need to talk to you guys about something," she opened slowly.

"So there is something?" Finn asked.

"Not a something bad, I swear, just come," she begged.

"Alright, you got it," Puck told her, and after that they had gone in the living room, her parents sitting on the couches. She had taken a seat on the edge of the coffee table. Usually her mother didn't want her doing that, so the fact that she didn't point it out at all told Nora that they were more concerned about what she might have to tell them.

For a few minutes, she'd been quiet. She knew what she had to say, she did, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't connect those thoughts to actual words, like she'd forgotten how to speak. With her eyes not fixing on any of them, she wouldn't see the looks that went between the four of them sitting there. They had long been aware of what she was about to tell them, if by nothing more than parental instinct, but they had let her come into telling them at her pace which, by how nervous this mystery subject seemed to be making her, they had to guess was all coming to this moment.

"I'm okay… right?" she had finally started, tentative. "I'm… I'm normal, or I'm the extraordinary me, like Grandpa Hiram says," she smiled, and Rachel had nodded, smiling back. "And whatever I say, that's not going to change, you know? Because I'm still the same person." She looked to her parents, and they were all nodding, answering quietly rather than interrupting her. "Thing is I've known this for a while now, I just never told you. But I'm really okay with it, and I want to be able to say it, and you…" She didn't know where the words had finally come from, but they had come, up until then. Now they had gone away again, and she had to pause, regroup. It was only as she paused that she felt like her nerves had calmed, that she wasn't feeling so dizzy anymore. And when she saw this, she also saw her parents, sitting before her, these four wonderful people who had loved her all her life, people she admired for what they did and who they were… "I like girls… not boys," she had finally said, feeling like her throat was waiting to see if it should get dry or not.

"Hey, come here," her father had been the first to speak, holding his hand out to her. She stood, moving to him, and when she was close enough, he had put his arms around her. "You don't have to be scared, okay?" he spoke at her ear. "We love you, and we always will," he promised her, and she nodded. One by one she would feel each of them holding her, and which embrace it felt like she breathed better. She'd known deep down that it would be alright, and despite a rumble with fear, at the end of the day she knew that she had done the right thing, because it had been right for her.

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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